Escape to the Movies: Maleficent - An Unusual Fairy Tale of Revenge

[Rag Doll]

So, after seeing the trailers, I could see that this was probably not going to be more than a 3 star movie, but that if it was just Angelina Jolie as Maleficent kicking butt and being a magnificent bastard for 90 minutes it just might work. Back then I figured that trying to make her symphatetic would defeat the purpose of the character. After hearing this synopsis, I'd say I was wrong about what the film was going to be because it went into places I could not have imagined Disney willing to go.

Honestly, I feel like this might be one of the films that will leave me with a bad ending, but my curiosity is peeked, since Bob is praising the evil segments that I was looking forward to in the first place.

 

[Darmani]

Jafar? Nah, next has to be Scar. Competent, ruthless politician finally gets a chance at running the country just as an unrelated natural catastrophe makes his approval rates plummet. Cue the return of the slob rich kid who has been wasting his life being high as a kite with his annoying trashy friends and sweeping the country through sheer charisma and family name recognition.

Yeah, this one's a tragedy.

Don't forget gay.

That's a big thing. Sure all of Disney's male villains are foppish and effete and vain; but with scar is near canonical with him playing the role of the evil uncle in macbeth and the ONLY hand he lays on Sarabi being snapping in rage, his most devoted female follower NOT giving birth to him and the closest thing to his heir is explicitly called out as NOT his biological son...geeh that's. uhm quite a thing there.

 

[hentropy]

It seems like this and Frozen has created a new theme for Dinsey, the idea of debunking or deconstructing some of the very simplistic and, let's face it, misogynist old-world Disney fairy tales into something much more complex and nuanced. True love exists but it doesn't come quickly or easily, some people are pretty bad/evil but they're not evil for no reason and it's all relative.

I'm not entirely convinced this is even the right way to go, the target shouldn't be cynicism, at the same time I can't really say it's a horrible thing that some of the stuff that doesn't look as relevant in a modern context is being put in different contexts.

 

[Smurf McSmurfington]

Sounds... very, very interesting.

 

[RJ Dalton]

I was expecting this to be a "Snow White and the Huntsman" style shit-fest. But your description actually sounds like it might be worth checking out. As a rental, obviously, I'm not going to pay full theater price for something like this, but a movie that's bad in an interesting way is certainly more entertaining than a film that's bad because it's just trying to be cookie-cutter blandness personified.

 

[linforcer]

Despite the apparent clunk, this sounds AWESOME. I am down to see this.

 

[ExtraDebit]

Don't listen to this review, while bob is mostly right in his other reviews, he produced a very shallow perspective on this one.

The thing that is so great about this movie is that previous disney movies or princess movies are inherently flawed and naive. They always portrait the kingdoms the princess lived in were perfect with a wise king and kind followers, but we know in history and in reality that's not how things are. Human are greedy self serving bastards, it's a hard thing to admit but we are....which was shown in the first act of the movie. Maleficient wasn't portrait as a hero, or that the humans were the bad guys, the humans were just doing what human does in medieval era and she's just refused to be bullied and defended herself.

The kid she fell in love with didn't kill her and took her wings instead because even if his ambition is more important to him, she's still his childhood friend. Is it really so hard for bob to understand it isn't easy to kill someone you known all your life? And neither can she kill him because of the same reason?

The second act makes perfect sense too, when you spend enough time with someone, even if it's someone you don't initially liked, you will grow fond of them....and Maleficient spend 15-16 years with this child. Is it so hard to grasp that you can bond with someone after spending 15 years with them?

The redemption arc DOES work, Maleficient was portrait as good in the beginning, it is just what her boyfriend did to her that turned her dark, but transformation can go both ways, where her boyfriend turned her dark, the baby she cursed returned her back to the light. For someone who was inherently good, it isn't hard to believe that their experience can reawaken the good inside of them.

This movie isn't for kids, I'm not even sure it's for some adults, it's for someone that HAD a naive view of love and awaken from it. People who never been in love, had their hearts broken or still think that true love is between a man and a woman will not fathom this movie.

In addition, if you watch this movie with too much of a literal eye you wouldn't enjoy it much. Instead try to look at it as a metaphor or poetry.

The first act can be seen as someone falling in love and think the other person is the world, a lot of us have been there and can surly empathize.

Remember how our gf/bf want to breakup with us for whatever reasons but they don't want to hurt us too much because of guilt but it hurt no less after the fact? That's the act of her getting her wings torn.

We then brood and think that life isn't fair and how can the other person be such a ***** and feel that everything is fucked, that's the act of her going dark.

After awhile we find something or someone else to occupy our time, that's the princess arc, and eventually we get over our lost love, that's the "redemption" part but I see it more as self healing act or reawaken old qualities.

The most brilliant of it all is when we realized that there is more to "true love" than lush and infatuation between a man and a woman, and they portrait it perfectly in one act.

If you've been in love and had your heart broken and gained a new perspective on "love" after you gotten over it, then this movie is absolute poetry and it's BEAUTIFUL!

 

[Oathfish]

I literally didn't have any interest in this movie until I heard him say that it felt like it had been hijacked by a lunatic. This review right here is why I'm going to go see this.

 

[Uriel_Hayabusa]

Bob's review convinced me to check it out just for the hell of it. This movie sounds like such a crazy idea that I can't help but want to see it with my own eyes.

Oh, and I don't think Jafar would be the ideal candidate for a revisionist retelling; I think it could work for Scar or the villain from Frozen, though. Maybe Gaston as well.

I'm torn regarding the idea of Jafar getting his story rewritten.[footnote] Saw a great idea but I hate the ideas of either Aladdin being the villain or Jasmine falling for Jafar.[/footnote] I do think a Gaston rewrite could be excellent if it turned out that among other things, Beauty gets Stockholm Syndrome during her time with Beast who really is just a dangerous animal, and the 'castle' could either be an abandoned one that the beast moved into or a cave filled with some familiar junk that Beauty decides can talk so that the grim, depressing nature of her situation doesn't drive her insane. Gaston could be someone who has loved her since they were kids, but because of his slight social ineptness he picks on her and comes across as bully because he can't bring himself to admit his feelings.

I actually would enjoy portraying Beast as really just that, seeing as I'm not a fan of the "socially maladjusted guy who actually has a heart of gold" archetype (it reeks of an idealization of loners) but if it were up to me I wouldn't have a good guy Gaston "picking on" Beauty, but rather hide his sensitive side with superficial machismo in an attempt to impress only to come around to that.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I was on the fence about seeing this in the theatre or waiting for home release, and this review may have just pushed me into seeing it in the theatre. It actually sounds and looks pretty cool.

 

[JimB]

The video crapped out on me in the last four seconds. Did any of his stinger images mention his opinion of a Million Ways to Die in the West?

 

[bigfatcarp93]

I'm surprised at the whole 'sympathetic villain' backlash movies like Maleficent have been getting.

I thought giving dimension to characters, through backstory and perspective change, was the way to give them depth.

Some characters, sure, that can be a very good thing. But not FUCKING MALEFICENT, the goddamned QUEEN OF DARKNESS!

 

[Machine Man 1992]

I'm surprised at the whole 'sympathetic villain' backlash movies like Maleficent have been getting.

I thought giving dimension to characters, through backstory and perspective change, was the way to give them depth.

Some characters, sure, that can be a very good thing. But not FUCKING MALEFICENT, the goddamned QUEEN OF DARKNESS!

Exactly; how do you add depth to an entity whose sole function is as The Antagonist? Maleficent isn't a character, she's a force, that's what made her effective. She's the most powerful sorceress in all the land and her driving motivation is, and lets be honest here, what any of us would do if we had her power; troll the rich and powerful. She needs depth like the Crank series needs restraint.

Plus her name sounds like a Finnish death metal band.

 

[TheMann]

So, we should never watch your video's again because they're going to contain spoilers every, single time. >_>

Seems like it. I'm getting pretty sick of Bob not being able to actually discuss a movie without spoiling huge plot points. Probably not worth it to watch his stuff anymore.

I agree. Ya know Bob, isn't is amazing how almost every other film critic seems to be able to review a movie without discussing the plot front to back? I can do it, I used write the friggin' things; it's not that hard.

It's not that great to tell us what happens to the characters, only whether or not it holds together as a cohesive and interesting story, and how well the acting, pacing and such contributes to how well the whole thing is executed. Yes, you can compare it to other movies, and even mention the extent of what the filmmakers were going for, but this can be done in broad strokes without the need to pick apart the plot piece by piece. This isn't like a book club where people sit around and talk about the events and characters in a work they've already read. Your core audience is for people who haven't seen the movie. I don't want to know why Copley and Jolie's characters are at odds with each other, that shit I want to see and find out when I watch the thing. All I want is your opinion on how well that conflict works in the context of the story. You've done this just fine with other movies and even a spoiler warning isn't an excuse to go that far in-depth with the plot.

Well I'll stop with the complaining but yeah, keep this up and people will just stop watching after awhile.

 

[teamcharlie]

So. From what I'm hearing (and I haven't seen it, so my assessment may be wrong), Maleficent is a movie about sexual violence which, due to it being a Disney movie (or, to make a generalization, a recent movie), can't really show sex or violence. One that is about a powerful but shallowly portrayed female character getting fleshed out as being entirely motivated by some man with whom she's obsessed.

I hope this movie bombs, though I'm darkly suspicious that it wont.

On the other hand, A Million Ways to Die In the West was pretty fun. I think MacFarlane went a bit overboard trying to portray just how shitty the old west was to live in (not that I disagree with him) to the extent that it started to cut into the jokes and the movie's tone. Charlize Theron also shows up in a way that screams more 'let's get ladies in the theater/show how great Seth MacFarlane is at landing babes!' than giving any kind of explanation as to why she's even in the movie in context beyond being mad at Liam Neeson. Still definitely the right choice over Maleficent, though I am starting to get very tired of 'obsessed with some douchebag' as the motivation for literally everything every major female character in a movie does. I will say though that I found Amanda Seyfried's and Sarah Silverman's characters much more compelling than Theron's in spite of their relatively reduced screentime.

 

[Buizel91]

So basically if i watch Sleeping Beauty after i watch this i'll feel sorry for Maleficent?

I'm okay with this. And to be fair this film sounds amazing, im glad Disney took such a huge risk, and i hope it's successful. Disney at the moment seem to be owning the film industry at the moment and i hope this inspires other film companies and directors to take more risks. If risks aren't taken and things changed up a bit films are going to get stale very fast.

 

[McGuinty1]

The only part of "rape" was about the male nurse in the first movie that apparently had sex with her and other coma victims (he got what he deserved by having his head smashed in with the door).

He also got what he deserved by being machine-gunned and then given a coup-de-grace headshot by Walter White last year.

 

[s_h_a_d_o]

'I wonder what it's like to have "Howling Mad Murdock" be the most "normal" role you've ever gotten as an actor...'

@MovieBob - Have you not seen 'Europa Report'?

 

[Hammartroll]

The thing that gets me about this movie is, Who is it's audience?

It's not for kids or families
It's not for teenagers
It's not for males craving CGI transformers type of action
I doubt it's going to appeal towards women (not being one I couldn't say for sure, but wife has no interest).
It's not an art house type of movie

So I'm really asking, who is this movie made for?

I can see a lot of college aged girls enjoying the movie. The ones that grew up on disney princesses, but who're now mature and probably have taken a feminist class.